112 Bangladeshi workers perished in a factory fire last week - the cause is still under investigation. And as the tragedy made its way across international news headlines, it quickly became clear the factory was producing clothing for mega-retailer Walmart in the United States.

Image: (Getty Images) The price others pay for American consumerism. Walmart claims it didn't know the factory was still producing goods for its stores. It also claims it will work to improve conditions for overseas workers - but if this were true, and overseas workers were working with similar wages under similar "acceptable" conditions found in America, why outsource jobs in the first place? Clearly Walmart is just paying lip service.

The garment factory in Bangladesh where a weekend fire killed at least 112 people had been making clothes for Walmart without the giant U.S. retailer's knowledge, Walmart said.

The report also stated:

'Today, we have terminated the relationship with that supplier,' America's biggest retailer said in a statement Monday. 'The fact that this occurred is extremely troubling to us, and we will continue to work across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh.'

Regarding the conditions of the factory, AP reported:

Survivors of the weekend fire said an exit door was locked, fire extinguishers didn't work and apparently were there just to impress inspectors, and that when the fire alarm went off, bosses told workers to return to their sewing machines. Victims were trapped or jumped to their deaths from the eight-story building, which had no emergency exits.

However, what Walmart hopes the public never figures out is that if ever the mega-retailer manages to bring standards and wages up to what the West would consider "acceptable," their offshore supply chain would no longer benefit them and their profit margins - jobs would be better off kept on American soil, where they began in the first place. Clearly Walmart has no intention of "improving" anything except perhaps better obfuscating their supply chain from the general public.
Additionally, the mega-retailer's alibi that it "didn't know" the factory was still producing clothing for their stores is both irresponsible and unacceptable. In order to circumvent safety concerns and liability, Walmart may have just as easily "known" and set up the arrangement to maintain plausible deniability while maintaining its profitable supply chain. Walmart is responsible for its supply chain, and if is difficult to keep track of factories scattered across the planet to fill stores in America, then that's all the more reason to bring the jobs back home.

Walmart isn't the only mega-corporation who has offshored American jobs to dungeons and deathtraps overseas - Apple's relationship with Taiwan's Foxconn is another example. Operating in mainland China, where windows must be locked and safety nets deployed below to prevent waves of suicide attempts that sweep across the oppressed, underpaid workforce (also here, here, and here) as they churn out iPads and iPhones to sate America's consumerist hunger, Foxconn has become a notorious name in the generally under-reported world of exploited labor.

Image: Foxconn has installed "suicide nets" under the windows of upper floor to prevent deaths after waves of suicide sweep its underpaid, overworked employees. While many allegedly champion for "human rights" across the West, when they do so by tapping on their slave-made iPhones and iPads, they are merely compounding, not solving the problem.

Ironically, many who tout themselves as "liberal" and interested in human rights, can be found "tweeting," updating their Facebook accounts, e-mailing, and discussing their pet humanitarian causes on iPads and iPhones created by the modern equivalent of slave labor. Don't Just Boycott Walmart - Replace it Permanently

Walmart's questionable supply chain is not a new topic, it is simply back in the news because of a particularly tragic repercussion of its habitual disregard for human life. Campaigns to force Walmart, or Apple, or any other large multinational corporation to reform their behavior has only caused them to bury their abuses deeper, further from necessary oversight. It is only tragedies like the fire in Bangladesh that momentarily bring the truth of Walmart's continued, willful negligence to the surface.

Many people are quick to call for a boycott - and this is indeed a superb idea. But it is an idea that will never take hold unless it is taken to the next level - by doing so, it will address the myriad of problems Walmart's business model has created, and not just human rights abuses.

Boycotting Walmart must be done in tandem with a concerted local effort to create citizen-networks, clubs, hackerspaces, and makerspaces to pool resources together and begin replacing permanently, large multinationals like Walmart, not through mere protests or policy changes, but through local innovation and entrepreneurship. These local networks will produce small businesses and jobs, leveraging technology while giving local communities exactly what they want, and a direct hand in the manufacturing process, not merely a chance to "belly up" to the corporate-consumerist troughs filled daily at Walmart.

Developing this local infrastructure will not happen overnight, and it will not cause Walmart to shutter its doors tomorrow, or even this week. But technology is already negating the massive, centralized, scale of economy business models employed by Walmart and other mega-multinationals. And while a handful of friends and family getting together after work, pooling their resources to leverage modern technology to create a workspace within which they can create, design, invent, and produce, may seem like a small drop in a very large bucket to fill, people pursuing this solution in parallel around the country, and around the world will quickly gain momentum collectively, creating local supply chains that directly benefit local people - in the United States and in Bangladesh - no disparity required.

With all real solutions, effort, education, organization on a local level, and persistence will be required - but it is a price that is at the same time a benefit, and when compared with the continuously deteriorating economy and social fabric of Western society within the current paradigm it is mired, it seems like a small price to pay, and one that seems it should begin being paid immediately.

This is Americas competition for jobs that are now coming back to America in the privatized prison complex where the tax payer pays the labor costs. The suicide nets are shocking and this should be broadcast all over the planet.

Funny isn't it that the person in the foreground of the picture is doing what? Talking on a cell phone! To blame the west for all of this is unjust...they have cell phones in in obscure parts of South America and Africa and as for the Asians there's isn't a darn one of them that doesn't have a cell phone as well...the fault of these types of occurrences is the fault of the country and their lack of workers safety regulations and work place safety regulations!

The moron that wrote the comment about the guy in picture know nothing at all. The people that work at these foctories can not affore to buy the phones they make so buy 5th grade phones. The real morons who pay 100 time more are the real dummies that are making these companies fat.

boycotting Walmart will end up in the process of removing jobs and opportunity from LDC s such as Bangladesh... nothing will happen to Walmart in the long run. We better create pressure on Walmart and other Brands, so that they ensure adequate work environment and safety measures in those sweatshops ...

Why buy clothes made in Asian countries, anyways? Their sizing is different than ours, there is no quality, only quantity. I had a job of measuring jeans for consistency and would find size 14 front on a size 12 back. Garments are sewn on the bias, which stretches out of shape after a few washings. Do your blouses hang funny, after awhile? Once they are boxed up, they go on containers w/products from other counties, complete with all kinds of bugs and parasites. When theses containers hit the U.S. docks, the 1st thing they do is fumigate the whole load. I used to cough & hack from unloading containers, the smell was so bad. My clothing wreaked of chemical smells.

Since WalMart is the largest retailer, why not encourage them to start up clothing factories in OUR country? This would create more jobs, add to the economy, eliminate the chemical poisoning and not support sweat shops. Come on Walmart, be a responsible business to our communities and our country.

Why do we tolerate the behavior of these corporate behemoths? A corporation is an artificial entity created so people can group together to make money. There is nothing sacred or preordained about it.

It is an ENTITLEMENT, aka as a charter, granted by a state, saying we license this group of people to call themselves this name as they set out to make money. It must be the only state right left, but why?

Why not overwrite the corrupt race to the bottom with federal law on corporate charter? In this case Walmart voids American law by moving production offshore where it can profit without regulation. Yet it lives here as a citizen usurping all the rights of citizenship including our legal and political systems. They shouldn't be able to have it both ways.

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